The future of agriculture technology

I write this blog with regards to the recent floods in five states of India, which affected about 10,000 hectares of Kharif crop, crushing year-long efforts and patience of farmers in one go.

Farmers constitute 50% of India’s workforce and contribute about 14.2% to the GVA. The Government has always invested hugely in the form of financial aid, education and training under several initiatives such as the National Agriculture Market, or Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, leading to growth in household income, expansion of the food processing sector, increase in exports and surge in organic farming.

However, climate change is one of the biggest challenges farmers are struggling with. Perpetual droughts, floods, and other extreme weather conditions are impacting their survival like never before. There is unpredictability at every step of the way. The cycle of seasons is disturbed and farmers are struggling to decipher optimal sowing-harvesting schedules, thus yielding a poor crop. It is an alarming problem for a nation that ranks second in the world chart for agricultural produce.

The question for the technology industry is, how do we address these fundamental challenges? How can we leverage technology to help make a significant difference?

I believe the answer lies in unlocking insights from vast amounts of data. There is a vast amount of historical data which can be combined with real-time current information and analysed using advanced computing to enable farmers with predictive analytic tools in the simplest form possible. These tools can aid them to take sound decisions for their crops, right from the process of sowing to harvesting.

As a company that is committed to empowering every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more, Microsoft realises the potential of machine learning and data science tools to unlock new solutions. We have recently partnered with an international non-profit organization that undertakes scientific research for development - International Crop Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), a United Nations Agency, to make this a reality.

The Sowing Application and Personalized Village Advisory Dashboard have been developed to provide powerful cloud-based predictive analytics to empower farmers with crucial information and insights to help reduce crop failures and to increase yield. The personalized Village Advisory Dashboard provides important insights around soil health, fertilizer recommendations, and a seven day weather forecast derived from the world’s best available weather observation systems and global forecast models.

The Sowing Application utilizes powerful artificial intelligence to interface with weather forecasting models provided by USA-based aWhere Inc. and to analyse extensive data, including rainfall over the last 45 years as well as 10 years of groundnut sowing progress data for the Kurnool district. This data is then downscaled to build predictability and to guide farmers to pick the ideal sowing week. When combined with other data collected from the Rythu Kosam project it can create rich data sets that can be processed to build predictive models for the farmers. The most simplified part of the application however, is the fact that information about the sowing date is sent to farmers via SMS in Telugu.

Big Data, Machine Learning and Predictive Analytics have come together to enable this pilot which is in partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh.

For farmers, the potential of machine learning is immense. Imagine a farmer who’s able to make the most relevant crop selections, gain market rate predictions and is able to collaborate and partner with others in the eco-system. It will ensure reduction of crop failure, greater valuation of their produce without intermediaries and an improved living standard as a combination of these factors.

Data-driven agriculture can unlock many new benefits and also pave multiple ways for governments to discover the potential technology offered towards solving different societal challenges in education, healthcare and public safety.

The best thing about initiatives driving Artificial Intelligence-driven transformations, such as this one, is that they are easily replicable anywhere in the world and can serve the planet.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETtech.com do not necessarily subscribe to it. ETtech.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETtech.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETtech.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.